Jorge Ramos: Latin America Will Keep Fighting Drug War While US Gets High Jorge Ramos - Fusion
go to original March 17, 2014

First, the good news: Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord, is still behind bars (Guzman escaped from prison once before, in 2001, so the authorities are not going to let that happen again). The bad news, however, is that the race is on in Mexico to replace him as the head of the Sinaloa cartel.

The worst news is that more and more people in the United States are smoking marijuana - many of them legally - which means that El Chapo's capture last month in a seaside condo in Mazatlan will have little impact in Mexico's war against the drug cartels, if it's not actually counterproductive.

Now, I don't want to rain on President Enrique Pena Nieto's parade: Capturing one of the world's most-wanted men is a huge accomplishment, and it was done without a shot fired. That should be celebrated. But the occasional capture of a prominent drug lord will not curb violence in Mexico, nor will it end the war on drugs. Every time an El Chapo is arrested, a number of small-time Chapos try to take his place, and they do so by any means necessary, which is why peace and safety rarely follow a cartel leader's elimination. The trafficking of illicit drugs does not decline, nor does the violence.

In January, 1,366 people were killed in Mexico, and 132 were reported kidnapped, according to official data. Those statistics are similar to those from January 2013, and the trend will not change this month, or next month, or the month after that. There is simply too much demand for drugs in the United States, and Latin America will fill it.

Read the rest at Fusion

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